Inventor: Robot Can Kill Ebola On Any Surface

ATLANTA, GA - AUGUST 01: In this handout photo provided by Emory University, an isolation room is seen at Emory University Hospital on August 1, 2014 in Atlanta, Georgia. The hospital expects to treat a patient who was stricken with Ebola in the coming days. (Photo by Jack Kearse/Emory University via Getty Images)A Central Texas meteorologist who was shot earlier this month outside his television station has been released from a hospital. (Photo by Jack Kearse/Emory University via Getty Images)

SAN ANTONIO (CBS Houston) – An inventor in the Alamo City has developed a machine that may be a weapon to fight Ebola.

Xenex is marketing a germ-killing robot that uses ultraviolet light to sterilize a room.

Called “Little Moe,” it’s essentially a tall Roomba that is placed in the center of a hospital room.

Inside is a xenon bulb that pulses a powerful UV light that fuses the DNA in bacteria and viruses, killing them.

Dr. Mark Stibich with Xenex said these robots can rid a hospital room of germs in 5 minutes and destroy Ebola on any surface in 2 minutes.

Dr. Mark Stibich with Xenex explained the robots can rid a hospital room of bacteria in five minutes and can destroy Ebola on any surface in just two minutes.

“And what our customers have seen and reported in the medical literature is reduction in these infections in the rate of up to 50 percent,” he told KENS-TV.

The machine is being used in 250 hospitals across the United States, including the Dallas hospital where doctors are treating the first man diagnosed with Ebola in the country.

“We have been communicating with them and supporting them in any way we can,” Stibich noted.

Dr. Stibich acknowledged the national concern about the Ebola virus, but he reassures us that the U.S. has the right medical technology to contain any outbreak.